tag:theconversation.com,2011:/au/topics/phillip-hughes-13747/articlesPhillip Hughes – The Conversation2014-12-08T19:38:32Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/349712014-12-08T19:38:32Z2014-12-08T19:38:32ZAfter Phillip Hughes’ death, it’s time for a post-traumatic Test<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/66377/original/image-20141205-7256-1nm2jxw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Adelaide Oval, Phillip Hughes' most recent state cricket home, will play host to this week's first Test match between Australia and India.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">AAP/Michael Ramsey</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The first cricket Test match of the Australia summer is usually a happy occasion. Its retro sights of white-flannelled figures and the comforting sound of bat on ball herald the holiday season even for those who don’t care much for the game. But not this time.</p>
<p>Australian batsman Phillip Hughes’ <a href="http://www.smh.com.au/sport/cricket/phillip-hughes-dead-australian-cricketer-dies-after-bouncer-at-scg-20141127-11vcpt.html">death</a> on the field of play barely a fortnight ago is a reminder not of carefree fun, but of mortality. Players, officials and sports journalists have displayed the trauma on their faces. Legions of cricket fans, and even people who had never previously heard of Hughes, have publicly displayed their grief. </p>
<p>The much-coveted Google landing page carried the <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com.au/google-has-put-out-its-bat-for-phil-hughes-2014-11">viral image</a> of a leaning, unattended bat. Overseas football matches saw <a href="http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/cricket/article-2853965/England-rugby-team-pay-tribute-Phillip-Hughes-ahead-Australia-encounter-joining-putoutyourbats-campaign.html">displays of sorrow</a> for the death of a sportsman.</p>
<p>Days of saturation media coverage preceded the <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-12-03/thousands-turn-out-to-farewell-phillip-hughes-at-funeral/5935422">funeral</a> in rurally picturesque Macksville attended by teammates, celebrities, politicians and locals. There was the usual glib talk of closure, but how can cricket and its followers return so quickly to business as usual and efficiently expunge the awful images of an incident given such intensive, repeated exposure?</p>
<p>If there is to be a genuine healing process it is necessary to confront some uncomfortable home truths. It has been all too easy to dismiss Hughes’ death as a “freak” accident. In part, this was legitimate reassurance to the bowler of the fatal ball, Sean Abbott, who could have scarcely imagined that a regulation bouncer to an armoured batsman would have such dire consequences.</p>
<p>But it is important to understand how the accident came to happen, and not simply to attribute it all to malign, capricious fate or rule out justifiable questioning of the staggering scale of the response to it – as the usually astute observer Greg Jericho <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-12-03/jericho-dont-use-hughes-death-to-beat-your-own-drum/5935818">has done</a>.</p>
<p>Piling up all the apparently unique combination of factors in this case – “cricket, fame, youth, style, media attendance plus a multitude of other things [that] contributed to the response” – Jericho declared:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Let us honour him by not using his death to beat our own drum. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>Certainly, any event as heart-wrenching and newsworthy as Hughes’ tragic death is certain to draw out all manner of axe-grinders and ideological opportunists, as well as those who are just trying to make some sense of what happened and to prevent its recurrence.</p>
<p>But accidents and the responses to them don’t just happen in isolation or speak for themselves. It is imperative to look beyond the moment, even if we feel a powerful compulsion to succumb to sentimentality’s warm embrace. The drum beat cannot be so easily stilled or its repercussions denied.</p>
<p>Last December, during the fractious Ashes tour by England, I <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-ashes-australian-masculinity-reborn-amid-english-tumult-21265">wrote</a> about the overt aggression of the Australian team, as embodied by Mitchell Johnson and his macho moustache, and its unbridled celebration of a “reborn 1970s cricket masculine archetype”.</p>
<p>There was not much duty of care on show then for the mentally fragile and heavily sledged English batsman Jonathan Trott. Australian captain Michael Clarke, who provided such strong support for Hughes’ family and <a href="http://www.smh.com.au/sport/cricket/michael-clarkes-speech-at-phillip-hughes-funeral-won-the-countrys-admiration-and-sympathy-20141203-11zmr6.html">wept movingly</a> for his “little brother”, gained grudging respect in old-school ranks when <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/sport/2013/nov/25/michael-clarke-captaincy-sledging-james-anderson">caught by a microphone</a> telling England’s Jimmy Anderson to face up to Johnson and “get ready for a broken fucking arm”. </p>
<p>In a sideshow in the nets, former Australian Test fast bowler Brett Lee <a href="http://www.smh.com.au/national/piers-morgan-broke-ribs-in-showdown-with-brett-lee-20140101-3067s.html">broke a rib</a> of vociferous middle-aged English journalist and batting “bunny” Piers Morgan.</p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/66391/original/image-20141205-8658-145xeow.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/66391/original/image-20141205-8658-145xeow.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/66391/original/image-20141205-8658-145xeow.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=825&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/66391/original/image-20141205-8658-145xeow.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=825&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/66391/original/image-20141205-8658-145xeow.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=825&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/66391/original/image-20141205-8658-145xeow.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1036&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/66391/original/image-20141205-8658-145xeow.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1036&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/66391/original/image-20141205-8658-145xeow.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1036&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Phillip Hughes’ death resulted in days of saturation media coverage.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">AAP/Jane Dempster</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The key lesson is that what happened to Hughes at the SCG could have occurred last summer or at any other time and place in the world of cricket. Over the last year, with much less publicity and some circumstantial differences, it already has on <a href="http://www.stuff.co.nz/sport/opinion/63759297/Reason-Phillip-Hughes-death-highlights-crickets-hypocrisy">several occasions</a>.</p>
<p>This does not mean that cricket is uniformly dangerous or that cricketers are homicidally inclined. Yet players and crowds may talk and chant about metaphorically killing the opposition – in Australia in the 1970s it <a href="http://www.alloutcricket.com/cricket/memories/jeff-thomson-unleashes-hell#Q0u8MQCLtAOHRok0.99">seemed</a> almost <em>de rigueur</em>. </p>
<p>While many excuse this behaviour as just exuberance and rhetorical overkill, cricket is emphatically not a bloodless video game. Most of those who watch its elite form receive a neatly packaged, sanitised screen version, spiced with hyped–up commercial television commentary. Slow-motion replays give little sense of the peril in which the players are placed. But sledging and hostile gestures are not mere melodramatic performances – as we have so painfully seen, not all of the actors leave this set safe and sound. </p>
<p>What happened to Hughes was a shocking reminder that a screen is only a two-dimensional representation and that the language of violence cannot be tritely quarantined from its physical implications. In recoiling from the spectre of gladiators sacrificed to baying Colosseum crowds, public and media responses were suffused with nostalgia.</p>
<p>Hughes was repeatedly <a href="http://wwos.ninemsn.com.au/glanceview/464838/phillip-hughes-the-next-bradman.glance">represented</a> as a Bradmanesque <a href="http://www.cambridge.org/au/academic/subjects/sociology/sociology-general-interest/don-bradman-challenging-myth?format=HB">“boy from the bush”</a>. This saddening tale of a young life cut short symbolically merged with the multitudes of hearty young men who will be commemorated in 2015’s Anzac centenary. </p>
<p>All this means a heavy emotional weight to carry into the Adelaide Oval for the game against India. Players and spectators will be closely scrutinised for signs of enduring change after Hughes’ death, but professional commercial sport has formidable momentum and resilience.</p>
<p>In the quieter moments, though, perhaps participants and witnesses will contemplate their own responsibility for fashioning a contemporary game that, though rarely visited by death, has too often courted dishonour.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/34971/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>David Rowe currently receives funding from the Australian Research Council for the Discovery Projects 'A Nation of "Good Sports"? Cultural Citizenship and Sport in Contemporary Australia' (DP130104502)</span></em></p>The first cricket Test match of the Australia summer is usually a happy occasion. Its retro sights of white-flannelled figures and the comforting sound of bat on ball herald the holiday season even for…David Rowe, Professor of Cultural Research, Institute for Culture and Society, Western Sydney UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/347832014-11-27T17:48:21Z2014-11-27T17:48:21ZPhillip Hughes death raises new questions over cricket helmet design<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/65725/original/image-20141127-18173-16tp6t5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Spotlight on safety. </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.shutterstock.com/cat.mhtml?lang=en&language=en&ref_site=photo&search_source=search_form&version=llv1&anyorall=all&safesearch=1&use_local_boost=1&searchterm=cricket%20helmet&show_color_wheel=1&orient=&commercial_ok=&media_type=images&search_cat=&searchtermx=&photographer_name=&people_gender=&people_age=&people_ethnicity=&people_number=&color=&page=1&inline=141139702">melis</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The <a href="https://theconversation.com/phillip-hughes-death-world-of-cricket-comes-to-terms-with-tragic-loss-34773">tragic death of 25-year-old Australian cricketer</a> Phillip Hughes after he was hit on the back of the head by a cricket ball has shocked followers of the sport around the world and raised questions about the safety of its players. </p>
<p>Hughes was wearing a helmet made by the manufacturers Masuri, but not its latest model which <a href="http://www.masuri.com/news/article/masuri-seeks-tv-and-video-footage-after-injury-bat/">has been improved this year</a> to give more protection. </p>
<p>The Conversation spoke to Andy Harland, senior lecturer in sports technology at Loughborough University, who has been involved in research on safety standards for cricket helmet design, on whether further changes are needed in the wake of Hughes’s death. </p>
<hr>
<p><strong>Should there be a review of helmet design as a result of Hughes’s death?</strong></p>
<p>There should always be an ongoing discussion of anything to do with safety in sport. Tragic incidents like this bring it into focus and we should do everything we can to understand the precise detail of the injury Phil Hughes suffered. Whilst every sympathy goes out to those affected by his death, it doesn’t actually change anything about the game in terms of managing that risk. It was an utterly unfortunate accident. </p>
<p>Safety equipments exist in a compromise position. We think of it in a little triangle: safety, comfort and performance. If you said to a professional cricket player, we can guarantee that you would be 100% safe with this helmet, but you would be uncomfortable when you play and you would not perform to your best, then there is every likelihood that a test match player would be willing to take more risk. </p>
<p>Some manufacturers do make helmets that are more or less comfortable to wear and they may or may not be compromising safety. So long as that information is very public and so long as there is transparency that allows a player to make an informed choice, then they have the right to make that choice. </p>
<p><strong>Could a different helmet with protection on the back of the head and neck have prevented his death?</strong></p>
<p>If Hughes had been wearing a motorcycle helmet he would probably be alive today. He almost certainly wouldn’t have scored a run though. It’s that compromise. I think there’s scope for manufacturers offering more protection on the neck as an option, but there’s nothing like that on the market today. Fashion and other issues might have meant it would be commercially unsuccessful. But that may have well changed overnight. </p>
<p>If it is marketed to the tail-end batsmen who come later down the order, perhaps one or two of those guys might be willing to compromise on their mobility. If a manufacturer can design a helmet offering increased protection on the neck without compromising mobility, I am sure it would be very popular.</p>
<p>*<em>Do you think this accident will make helmets mandatory in the game?
*</em></p>
<p>Helmets are not mandatory at the moment and I think it’s unlikely in practice that they will become so now. </p>
<p>There is now some evidence that if you really were to increase the level of protection at the cost of mobility, then you might expect more people to be hit. You just hope that when they are hit, the protection is effective at preventing injury. </p>
<p>We’ve carried out some initial tests ourselves at Loughborough that might steer the direction of future studies. These looked at things like the weight of the helmet and its thermal properties – whether it causes your head to heat up. It looked at whether your ability to think clearly or to react was impacted by the length of time you were wearing head protection. Remember small fractions of a second can be the difference between being hit or avoiding a blow. We found that it might, but more research is needed to draw any meaningful conclusions. </p>
<p><strong>What recent improvements have been made to cricket helmets?</strong></p>
<p>Two years ago, a group including representatives from the International Cricket Council, the Professional Cricketer’s Association, the England and Wales Cricket Board, the British Standards Institute and most of the major manufacturers <a href="http://www.lboro.ac.uk/news-events/building-excellence/case-studies/safer-cricket/">joined together</a> to revise the British standard for helmets. The remit was based on injuries that have become prevalent when the ball passes between the facial grill and the helmet. We revised it to specifically address that shortcoming. </p>
<p>We created an additional test that is required for a helmet, which involves firing a ball at the face of the helmet at match-realistic speeds and checking that neither the ball nor the facial grill itself comes into contact with the face on impact. </p>
<p>At the time when we first started looking at this, it’s probably fair to say that for almost all the helmets on the market, you could have found circumstances that they failed this test. It was an area that needed improvement across the board. Over the past two years, this has allowed medics, manufactures and researchers at universities to all work together and share knowledge about helmet design. </p>
<p>The standard has been redrafted and was adopted in December 2013 so we are in the phase now of it going live. The first new helmets, designed to meet this new standard should be on the market soon. I hope that cricketing authorities and players around the world will choose to wear accredited helmets and replace them when they are damaged, even if it is unlikely they will become mandatory.</p>
<p>*<em>Could this tragedy make more amateur cricketers wear helmets?<br>
*</em></p>
<p>I certainly hope it takes away any remaining stigma associated with wearing a helmet at any level of the game. I hope it means that amateur players will think carefully about their safety needs, that they will look after the products and check them regularly when they do play. People should be provided with good quality facts about their options and be fully aware of the risks they are taking if they choose not to wear a helmet. </p>
<p>But I think it would be a real shame if young people and recreational cricketers choose not to play as a result of this injury. According to the doctor in Australia who treated Hughes, there have <a href="http://www.espncricinfo.com/australia/content/story/803763.html">been only 100 cases</a> of this injury ever reported in medicine in history. You have to put it down to an accident and, despite the tragedy of Phillip Hughes’s death, the risk hasn’t changed.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/34783/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Loughborough University has received funding from International Cricket Council and England and Wales Cricket Board. Andy Harland was a member of the Committee responsible for the revision of British Standard BS 7928:2013: Specification for head protectors for cricketers</span></em></p>The tragic death of 25-year-old Australian cricketer Phillip Hughes after he was hit on the back of the head by a cricket ball has shocked followers of the sport around the world and raised questions about…Andy Harland, Senior Lecturer in Sports Technology, Loughborough UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/347732014-11-27T14:41:22Z2014-11-27T14:41:22ZPhillip Hughes death: world of cricket comes to terms with tragic loss<p>The cricket world has been rocked by the <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/11257080/Australian-cricketer-Phil-Hughes-dies-after-being-hit-by-ball.html">tragic death of 25-year-old Phillip Hughes</a> who lost his life two days after being struck on the back of the head by a cricket ball during a match in Sydney. </p>
<p>In a heart-warming tribute, several Australian cricketers <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/11257080/Australian-cricketer-Phil-Hughes-dies-after-being-hit-by-ball.html">gathered at the Sydney Cricket ground</a> where the incident took place following the news of this death. This act not only showed respect for Hughes, but it also showed great solidarity amongst the cricketers. Such solidarity will be important as Hughes’ teammates and the wider cricketing community come to terms with his death. </p>
<p>Sean Abbott, a friend of Hughes, who bowled the ball that ultimately caused Hughes’ death will particularly need the support of his fellow cricketers. Abbott did nothing wrong – he bowled a perfectly legal ball, but he will still probably experience feelings that could affect his future in the game. Thankfully, the cricketing world has shown united support for Abbott. For example, former Australian captain Mark Taylor <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/11257080/Australian-cricketer-Phil-Hughes-dies-after-being-hit-by-ball.html">stated</a>: “I hope Sean Abbott can forgive himself because the cricket community doesn’t blame him at all” – a <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/sport/2014/nov/27/phillip-hughes-death-sean-abbott-support?CMP=twt_gu">sentiment that is shared throughout the world of cricket</a>.</p>
<h2>Grieving for teammates</h2>
<p>The death of a teammate can be deeply difficult for sports people to deal with. Teammates share a great bond. They spend a lot of time together, have shared goals and aspirations, share challenging times, and often develop strong friendships. The loss of a teammate, particularly in such tragic circumstances, will be hard for Hughes’ fellow cricketers to come to terms with. </p>
<p>Previous <a href="http://baywood.metapress.com/app/home/contribution.asp?referrer=parent&backto=issue,4,6;journal,178,276;linkingpublicationresults,1:300329,1">research</a> by Keith Henschen and John Heil that examined the impact of the death of a teammate on sports performers found that players experienced feelings of shock and disbelief in the immediate aftermath following a teammate’s death, and experienced continued deep negative emotions such as depression as time progressed. Due to the close bond between teammates the death of a teammate can be more akin to that of a family member than to that of a colleague. </p>
<p>The emotions experienced by the sports people in this research link to grief response models which suggest that people progress through a series of stages as part of the grief process. In <a href="http://www.slideshare.net/michaelcnagle/kubler-ross-grief-cycle">Kubler-Ross’ well-known grief model</a> from 1969. These stages are: denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance. Obviously grief is not a simple process and there are individual differences in the way that people experience grief, but this offers a framework of typical responses. To help people cope with the grief of losing a friend or teammate and progress through these stages it is important that they receive support, and it is pleasing to hear that <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/sport/2014/nov/27/phillip-hughes-death-sean-abbott-support?CMP=twt_gu">Abbott is receiving that from a counsellor</a>. </p>
<h2>Risk of more injuries</h2>
<p>Hughes’ death will have an impact not only on his teammates, but on the cricket world as a whole. An incident like this makes players realise that they are not invincible and can cause a reality check that can lead to more cautious play. For example, bowlers the world over might think about the potential consequences of their ball before bowling as a direct consequence of this incident and be in fear of causing harm to another player. </p>
<p>Batters too may be more fearful of getting hurt. Fear of injury and death are not conducive to good performance and in fact caution can actually cause more injury. In <a href="http://baywood.metapress.com/app/home/contribution.asp?referrer=parent&backto=issue,4,6;journal,178,276;linkingpublicationresults,1:300329,1">Henschen and Heil’s</a> study, an interesting finding was that injury rates were higher in the two weeks following a teammate’s death than at any other point during the season. </p>
<p>Sport psychologists and other professionals are crucial at this time to help players cope not only with the grief of losing a member of their fold, but also with the impact this can have on their play and performance. The loss of such a young and talented player is truly tragic and will have an impact on cricketers everywhere. Let’s hope that the legacy of camaraderie and team spirit he left behind him will help his fellow players deal with the loss.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/34773/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Caroline Heaney does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The cricket world has been rocked by the tragic death of 25-year-old Phillip Hughes who lost his life two days after being struck on the back of the head by a cricket ball during a match in Sydney. In…Caroline Heaney, Senior Lecturer in Sport and Fitness, The Open UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.